Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Flipping lids and Impulse Shopping

When your children are young, you are very cautious – especially with the first born – to do things correctly. You buy the right books, movies, pick the right television programs. You teach them right from wrong and do your best to make them as good as they can be. After all, you are raising them to be respectable adults. As a grandmother … the pressure is off. At least for me, it is. I teach my grandchildren every day. Not that I teach them incorrectly, I just teach them different things.

One thing that I do that makes all kids freak is flipping my eyelids. They scream, go running, I laugh. I didn’t show my own children for fear they would be scarred, but the grandkids are another ballgame.

Baby Frank was none too impressed with the flipping of the eyelids. Then again, this is the kid who carries around the killer baby puppet. Now, Violet . . . ha! Payback time for the bites. Thinking I’d torture her, I flipped the lids. She looked and shrieked in delight. She liked it? Huh? So, taking it one step further I was going to pretend, pretend mind you, that I was gonna flip hers.

“Let Great One do to you, baby,” I said and she leaned forward knowing exactly what I was going to do. I reached out. Being that her lashes are super long, I grabbed hold and pulled out her eye lid. I pretended to flip her eyelid and as I moved back to say, “Look how pretty’, I noticed. It was flipped.

“Oh my God,” I said, “Let Great One do the other.” She let me.

I laughed. She laughed. Ali came in and SCREAMED! “What did you do to my child!” Well at that point, Violet screamed and took off running. It was like the scene from ET, arms flailing in the air, long continuous screams all while her eyelids . . . remained flipped.

Eventually they dropped on their own. I wonder what the world record is for leaving your eyelids flipped. Bet Violet is in the running.

On a different note, I think I may have to stop taking my grandchildren to the store. Baby Frank was restless so I took him grocery shopping. He was really good in the store, we get to the check out and then he starts. His patience had worn out. OK. No biggie. Hurriedly and focused I load the stuff from the cart on the belt. Fast and furiously, unloading and watching him.

“143.88,” the checker said.

Huh? That much? I keep a loose track as I go, I’m usually off, but not that much. I had estimated around 100. “Did the roast ring up buy one get one, that’s awfully high.”

She checked. “Yes it did.

Shrugging and figuring I lost count, I paid.When I got home, Noah graciously offered to put away the stuff. But said, “Mom, are you planning on some weird apocalypse event?”

Not knowing what he was talking about, I turned and looked. Here I had inadvertently purchased 13 packs of batteries, 10 packs of gum, 5 one ounce energy shots, and a jumbo pack of Reese’s cups.

I guess Baby Frank defined impulse shopping. He must have been loading the belt as fast as I was. At least, unlike Violet he was making sure I paid for the items he wanted.